Notes on the Other

On July 13, 1924, Ernest Hemingway was in Pamplona, Spain when he saw a wounded man lying on the other side of the street. He became consumed with the feeling that he was that man, seeing himself in the near-dead Spaniard who had been attacked by bulls. "I am him," Hemingway later wrote.

Having tapped into such empathy, he was able to develop characters and become a hugely successful novelist.